


Old Hymns

by Pappillon



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Requested from Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 03:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11615172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pappillon/pseuds/Pappillon
Summary: White Diamond travels into the deepest parts of her chambers to visit a certain beast.





	Old Hymns

White Diamond’s chambers went on forever. A series of rooms followed rooms, some sections connecting to one another via warp pad, where roaming bands of Pearls did daily duties assigned to them eons ago. Some hadn’t seen their Diamond in years.

Past the organized and godless lands of sprawling hallways, leisure rooms, and heavy doors, White looked through her cameras at the end point of her chambers where no one went any longer. Through the many password protected doors and the old goddess statues gathering dust, she regarded one room in particular.

“Pearls,” she said from the helm of her control room. “Please leave.”

“Yes, My Diamond,” the two that had stood with her replied and went away. White locked the door behind them before sitting in silence a few moments and calling Yellow.

The light of her largely marble surroundings grew golden beneath the call’s influence. Even before she had answered, her colors reflected upon White’s blank face, and her voice arrived before her image.

A little terse, she said, “Hello, White.”

“Yellow,” White coughed, and pressed her fingers against her disobedient throat. “I called to ask for your help regarding—”

“We both know I’m not going to be able to help. We’ve tried. Is there anything else?”

White sat back upon her throne. “I think it’s time we tell Blue.”

Yellow didn’t answer, but chewed up one side of her mouth. Running her tongue past her teeth and shaking her head, she said, “You had better not say a single  _ word _ to her. I don’t want her seeing that  _ thing _ . It’s time we move on.”

White’s screen showed every deliberate breath Yellow made, as well as the points of her high-definition stare. Without a response, she continued, “Do you understand how embarrassing this would be for her? Blue is better off believing she’s shattered, and I’ll be livid if you say one word about it. You made a promise.”

White took her turn and collected a breath, releasing it almost in molecules. She set her decorated hand against the gem on her forehead.

“If anything, you could bubble her. I’m sure my lightning—”

“No,” White replied too quickly and sighed as a result. “No, thank you. I suppose I’ll talk to you later then.”

“Very well.” Without a moment’s pause, Yellow hung up and the room returned to all its regular hues and noise. White remained still a long time. Her Pearls came back and time continued on as if the air hadn’t been dyed temporarily yellow.

There was a little time, between that shift and the next, when White traveled down her halls. Her feet moved fast, past the old relics and the pictures on the walls. Blue and Yellow’s eternally painted gazes caught her a few times as she moved across patches of old carpet and mismatched tile floor.

From start to finish, White’s chambers occurred like a timeline, with the most recent items in the front to the most ancient in the back, and some anachronisms in between. Where there stood recent and fashionable statues of her, carved in uncanny detail, there might also be a piece of interesting spaceship the technicians couldn’t repair, or a photo someone had taken of a colorful group of stars, tangled into a shape. Like a museum curator, White collected things. A conspiracy theorist highlighting the passages in a book, she found odd portions of history in the occasional waste her gems would bring her. They might present something with both hands and a face full of guilt or wonder and say, “My Diamond, Your Majesty, I’ve found something that may pique your interest,” or, “My Sparkling, All-knowing Diamond, I am unable to repair this.”

If unique enough, White would take the item and find a place for it. Some she labeled; most she didn’t, and the statues became more outdated the further in she traveled, until Pink’s gaze, too, began to speckle the walls.

At the intersection of another statue modeling a sequined dress and an old painting, White stepped onto a warp pad that took her deeper into the chambers, where even more relics awaited her, amongst the roaming bands of Pearls who banished dust from them.

Eventually, she had gone in far enough where the statues stopped resembling her and morphed into different goddesses instead. White stopped walking before one made of glass.

Like they had depicted her countless times, the figure had its arms stretched out, as if she carried Homeworld and its bounty inside them. Her long flowing hair representing the never-ending body of stars, and like a fusion, she had four all-seeing eyes.

They used to pray to her, before White Diamond came.

Years and years after she emerged, they slowly stopped believing. Anyone left quit entirely once Yellow and Blue arrived. The Diamonds performed their miracles and none of their gems believed without evidence any longer. They then had evidence, and it would be heretical to believe that a force existed more powerful, more knowledgeable, than a _Diamond_.

White looked at the goddess of everything in the face. Her features were delicate, with large pouting lips and long lashes carefully represented in crystal.     

When they were all still savages, they must have needed a goddess like this; perfect, and beautiful, who owned and loved them all.  

“Why don’t you just break that thing?” Yellow had asked. “There’s no use in having it around. The time before the Diamonds is over. I’m surprised you didn’t shatter it the moment you saw it.”

“I don’t know,” White replied. “I find it interesting.” At that moment, they both regarded the statue before moving it into the secret chambers of White’s room, forever. “I would be a little sad to shatter it.”

“Suit yourself.”

Many of the old goddess statues had been shattered. Yellow had broken some, and both Diamonds had ordered their gems to break the others, until only a few remained in the safety of White’s halls, where no one could grind them up.

Even if all the goddesses had been turned to dust, the remnants would stick around. Perhaps they would become particles of sand which would make a stained-glass window, presenting White’s face. They still had songs from that time. They had changed the lyrics, but used the same chords and similar instruments. Sometimes those ancient tunes echoed around the halls.

White Diamond stopped lingering and moved to the furthest point of her chambers, then placed her hand against the pad upon the door. It scanned her heartlines and fingerprints, until the entrance separated in the center, with both sides rolling back like an eye opening.

Before stepping inside, White Diamond looked behind her, and after a pause, moved forward. Somewhere else, perhaps on a screen that no one watched, she appeared and approached the creature lying in the corner of the room.

It rose with her presence, in smooth serpentine movements. Feathers ruffled and many bright eyes opened, as it showed its bottom row of pointed teeth. From the gap came a slender and curious tongue, which moved as if lapping up the air.

White held out her hands. “Come here,” she said and didn’t move her firmly rooted feet when the creature approached, despite its size trumping hers. Even on all fours, it came to her height and set its long snout into her hand.

White brushed the monster’s neck and brought their foreheads together, despite touching some of the sensitive eyes that had grown out of control, like an asymmetrical flaring of sores. Its large and small eyes blinked upon contact, nervous and fluttering as they settled their faces together and exhaled in unison.

“I know. You must get so lonely here. I’m sorry.”

The beast chirped, and began cleaning White with its tongue, licking past the flat face of the diamond in her forehead and then moving to groom her hair. Using its teeth, the creature brushed through White’s untamed thorn bush, infusing her locks with nourishing saliva to help her do away with the split ends and damage.

“ _ Would you stop? _ ” White had to push its face away and held it still as they stared at one another. That long tongue came to sample her hand. “You always do this when I come and see you, even though I’ve told you many times that this is the best it’s going to get. Surely, your  _ Eau de Bouche _ isn’t helping.”

The creature tapped their heads together and nuzzled its smell all over White.

“Honestly, you never listen to me. You never have and I doubt you ever will.”

In cuddling her, the creature nearly knocked White off balance.

“I know. I missed you too. I didn’t miss your saliva, but I’m willing to overlook that. Will you be good today?”

They looked at one another and a low noise erupted from the creature’s mouth. In a sudden burst of energy, it pulled away and began to run around the room, claws clicking on the smooth floor as its long feathers shimmered. They shook and some shed, like the aftermath of a pillow fight, landing along the floor and glistened like the scales of a beautiful reptile.

The creature panted loudly and sometimes gave an excited shriek.

“Alright, alright.” White walked to the edge of the room and sat, where the beast and its long limbs skidded to a stop and lay on top of her, rolling with pleasure at the scratching of her nails. Still, White moved carefully around its neck, where she had occasionally found a stray eye hiding beneath the downy feathers. She had poked one once, and caused it to cry, so she brushed slowly and with her prints, rather than her pointed nails.

The creature closed its many eyes for her, and White began to sing.

She used to put on a show. For no one other than the beast, she and Yellow would sing backwards, making their potent overtones through the echoes they bounded across the walls. For a moment, it might work. Some of the eyes would start to close and disappear. The feathers dissipated to glittery dust, until her talons began to resemble regular nails and her claws became more like hands.

But after a certain point, it was never enough. No matter how frequently they tried nor how loud they sang, the creature remained a creature. Yellow had stopped coming after a while and left White to visit by herself.

Just like she did that day, she would normally allow the beast to lie on top of her and sing softly to it. Alone, at a low volume, the notes would sometimes erase one of the eyes, or make the feathers disappear like a minor magic trick, but most of all, they caused the beast to calm and even to fall asleep for a few moments as White’s fingers combed through.

The syllables she sang didn’t have any meaning. The original song didn’t have a meaning either. She merely arranged the notes in the correct order, in the correct pitch, for the correct amount of time, at least once a week. White closed her eyes and focused, exorcising some of the feathers.

“I pray that one day she’ll allow Blue to help you.”

When the notes stopped, the feathers and eyes started railing back, growing like the unruly vines of a savage jungle.

“I also pray that you’ll forgive me, and perhaps one day, I’ll be able to see your face again.”

The creature released a little hiss and most of its consciousness, settling well into White’s arms. The Diamond then picked up her ancient song with its lost meanings, and after a determined number of seconds, closed the doors to her inner sanctum. She promised to come again next week and sing to absolve her sins, but even with all the power woven into her being, she could do nothing more. 


End file.
